Author: buildmotion

Matt Vaughn is a software engineer and application architect building high-availability solutions using .NET and JavaScript technologies. Currently focused on Angular Enterprise Architecture, Practice, Process, and Patterns.

I have created a set of videos that demonstrate how to create a Service API. This service API is in the context of an application that provides a specific API for other parts of the application to use. It is not an externally facing API that is used. However, if you front this service API with some externally exposed end-points (i.e., Web Services, ASP.NET Web API), you can expose specific end-points of the service. In our example, we have a single service API. However, a typical enterprise application would have several services. Therefore, services could be using other services through their exposed API – then you would want to see the video on dependency injection below to see how to inject other services into a specified target service.

Service API Overview – Part I

The following video demonstrates how to create a simple service API for an application. Basically, you are starting with .NET/C# project and adding an interface and another class that implements that interface. The interface is the key. It defines what is accessible from the API as you will see.

Service API Code – Part 2

This video shows how the service is setup in the project using interfaces and concrete classes that implement the interfaces. As mentioned, an entity-driven approach was used in this application. Therefore, you will see a set of interface partial files that make up the actual interface. There is also a set of xService.EntityName.cs files that make up the implementation of the interfaces. The motivation for this convention was to support the code generation using entities as the domain source.

Service API Dependency Injection – Part 3

There is no way around it. Most services will some dependencies on other services or types. Use dependency injection when possible to supply the service with what it needs to do its job. The following video demonstrates how Autofac is used to inject types into the constructor of the specified service.

Break the Rule: I will come back to this code later and make it better.

Start creating consistency now, not later. Consistency can be a benchmark of quality. Only if the thing done consistently is of high quality. It could have a negative effect if you consistently implemented something using lower quality standards. What you want to achieve in your software solution is a consistent implementation of quality that can be quantified or measured.

You can use the measurements of quality mentioned in the previous articles or create your own set of quality standards. The entire development team should understand what the standards are and how to achieve them consistently. You will also need to put mechanisms in place to ensure your quality by measurement. This can be done by unit testing, performance and load testing, informal and formal code reviews, code refactoring, configuration management, automated deployment processes, and system monitoring. In general, use good tools and processes to create consistency.

Consistency happens over time. Measure and report the results of quality to the team. Use comparisons to previous time periods to show improvements in quality or to show that there needs to be more attention to a specific item of quality.

From the beginning, developers implement logic in methods. This is fundamental to programming because you need to execute code and logic. I’m not saying that we cannot use methods or operations in our code – this would be impossible. However, we need to stop putting valuable business logic in methods.

When we do this our application logic becomes a method calling a method, calling another method and so on. The logic is a chain of methods executing to create the desired behavior. There may be certain scenarios where using this approach is acceptable. However, the context that we are concerned about is implementing business logic.

Using single methods or method-chains is difficult or at times impossible to test. You cannot isolate the specified unit to test because there are dependencies in the other methods called. Therefore, since it so difficult to unit test – you probably do not create unit tests. Not unit testing is like going on a road trip without car insurance, road-side assistance, or even checking the dashboard to determine if you have enough fuel for the trip. I have seen people approach software without the securities of unit tests. But I do not see many people driving across the desert with extremely bald tires. Again, why do we take precautions in real-life when things matter, but do not take any when developing a software solution that costs thousands and sometimes millions of dollars.

Adding new behavior becomes more difficult in method-based business logic. You will start to see and smell the “if, then” clauses scattered throughout the methods. In the beginning of a software project, the difficulties of this approach are not as evident. Yes, there are few “if, thens”, but everything seems to be working fine. They become a dark chaotic reality later in the project. This is when discussions start about re-writing the application and doing it right this time. When in reality there wasn’t anything stopping you from doing it right from the beginning.

Treat business logic like first-class citizens in your application. Do not use methods. Implement them in classes so that you can benefit from object oriented features. You get object inheritance and sharing of common behaviors in base classes. You also get more extensibility opportunities using a class approach. Another benefit, is that your classes are easier to unit test.

The Vergosity Framework allows you to use this class-driven approach to implementing business logic. You can create your own framework – it is easy to do using a simple design pattern called Template Method.

Break the Rule: You do not have time not to do it the right way the first time.

There seems to be some unwritten rule that you do not have time to do it right the first time. Break this rule now. You do not have time not to do it right the first time.

Let’s face it, there is always a business end to developing software. There is a need and addressing that need quickly makes a difference. Hopefully, the business end (management) has a plan or a product road map. It is called a road map for a reason – there is a starting point, a destination, and points of interest along the way. There may be short-cuts to your destination, but you still have a road to travel and a distance between here and there.

For this reason, you need to plan for a successful road trip. You will need to meet milestones and deliver software features, that is what you do and that is what makes you valuable. Since there will be a need for your services for this journey, doing it the right way the first time will allow you to continue and end the road trip successfully.

As a developer though, how many times have you seen a project that seemed perfect in the beginning turn out to be total chaos down the road? Why does this happen? It happens because it becomes more difficult to add new features and deliver on time as the source code becomes more complex. There was never a plan to handle the complexity that came later. There was never a plan in place to create consistent and maintainable code. There was never a plan to create unit tests to determine what is and what is not working – kind of like a dashboard on your car. The “Check Software Engine” light is on, but no one knows what to do.

Only a fool would start a road trip without checking the oil and tires. In real life, we do the right things because they are important. In software development, it should be the same way. I guarantee that doing it the right way the first time doesn’t take more time. You can deliver more features and deliver them on time. You will hit the milestones of the project. And the best benefit is that you will enjoy the journey along the way until you reach your destination. I have seen small and large teams do this. It is not impossible.

Here are five (5) ways to create quality software the first time.

Create business logic using classes – create a framework, or use the Vergosity framework

Implement business rules using a Business Rule Engine – create a rule engine, or use the Vergosity Business Rule engine.

Implement unit testing early and throughout the development process. This is your safety net – kind of like road-side insurance.

Implement logging for your application early.

Use a well-defined architecture that includes proper abstraction between the layers of your application.

The Vergosity Rule Engine is now easier to use with Fluent API features. Basically, there is a ValidationContext object that you can add and configure rules using fluent API style syntax. If you are not familiar with the ValidationContext – it is contained in the Vergosity.Validation namespace. And if you are not familiar with Vergosity, you can get from Nuget: Install-package Vergosity.Framework. Or search by “Vergosity” in your “Manage Nuget Packages” reference option.

ValidationContext

The Vergosity Rule Engine contains a set of rules already implemented. You can start by adding them to an instance of the ValidationContext. There are (2) ways to use the new Fluent API. You just need to create an instance of the ValidationContext.

ValidationContextBase context = new ValidationContext();

Simple

Option 1, shown below is the easiest way to add a new rule to the ValidationContext. All of the new Fluent API calls are prefixed using “With”. This provides a nice filter for your methods. Below, an entity is setup for the unit test and is used as the target parameter in the IsNotNull rule.

When you call the RenderRules() method of the ValidationContext – you can retrieve the results from the Results list. You can use the results any way you prefer in your application. The ValidationContext also contains results filtered by the Severity indicated in the rule configuration.

ValidationContext.ExceptionResults;

ValidationContext.InformationResults;

ValidationContext.WarningResults;

With Configuration

The unit test below shows another option that includes rule configuration – this is where the fluent api really helps out. After you add the rule to the ValidationContext, you are ready to start configuring the specified rule using a set of methods that are prefixed by “With”.

Custom Business Rules

There will be situations where you need to create a custom business rules. The Vergosity Framework contains the framework classes for you to create simple or complex rules. We will show you how to create these rules – and then use them in your code.

Simple Rule

Simple rules inherit from the Vergosity Framework class called Rule. You modify the constructor to send in your target. The Render() method is where you implement the rule’s validation logic. You will need set the IsValid property to true/false based on the rule logic – then, you will return a new Result object as show below.

Simple rules allow you create rules that can be used or composed into composite rules. The rule rendering using the ValidationContext is consistent whether the rule is a simple or composite rule. Therefore, you have a lot of flexibility in managing business rules for you business logic.

Composite Rule

You can create a custom rule that contains any of the default rules and/or other custom rules. This allows you to compose your custom rule to contain whatever rule-set you require for you business logic. The composite rule will inherit from the Vergosity Framework class called: RuleComposite. Creating a custom rule allows you to reuse the rule from one or more locations in your code. You are also encapsulating the rule implementation into a single rule – therefore, you will only have one place to modify or extend you rule implementation.

Building the rule set is similar to the previous example in the unit tests. However, in the actual rule, you use the Rules list to add rules.

The following is the code snippet from the composite rule class. If you have noticed the WithPriority setting, this allows you to set or arrange the order that the rules are evaluated.

this.Rules.WithStringIsNotEmptySpace(entity.Name) .WithName(“NameIsValid”) .WithMessage(“The name value is not valid.”) .WithPriority(100) .WithSeverity(Severity.Exception);

I recently created a Code Generation tool that targets a set of entity items in a .NET project – to generate an entire .NET stack that includes a Service, Business and Data Access Layers. Because Entity Framework has database migration tools I can leverage my Entity Framework DbContext (that is generated) to also create a database based on the specified DbContext. I can do this in less than 10 minutes. I think that is productive, right?

The application leverages the Vergosity Framework and a light-weight enterprise architecture. I felt that once I had the architecture in place and realized the patterns were repeatable, I was ready for code generation. It has been a few years since I have worked with a code generator. The first consideration of code generation is to define the source that will be used to generate code. The second consideration are the templates. Then you bind the source with the template to create the output. Sounds pretty straight forward. You have some binding options when you are using .NET (i.e., T4Templates, Razor Engine). I chose the Razor Engine because this allowed me to use Razor syntax in Visual Studio to create my templates (.cshtml) files – this turned out to be the easiest part of creating the code generator. I’ve worked with T4Templates in the past. I do not have anything against them, just wanted to try something different.

Download the BuildMotion.CodeBuilder

You will need to get the source code which is contained in (2) projects on GitHub. The CodeBuilder requires a reference to Vergosity.Services and to the latest version of the Vergosity Framework (available on NuGet).

Here is a screen shot of the main window for the Code Builder. It was built using WPF on top of the Vergosity Framework for handling all of the business actions. The application doesn’t use a database, although I could see some future feature that saves the configuration.

Recipe for the Application

I would recommend starting out with a new or existing C# .NET Class Library project. You will want to make some NuGet package references.

1. Reference the Vergosity Framework & Vergosity.Services

You can reference the Vergosity framework with one of (2) ways using NuGet.

2. Create or Modify Existing Entity

You will want to create or modify your entity classes. Make sure your entity classes inherit from Vergosity.Entity.IEntity or some other distinct interface. You might need to create one for you entity classes. This will be used by the code generator to target all classes in your project that implement or inherit from the specified type.

Ex: public class Customer : Vergosity.Entity.IEntity

3. Add Identifier Properties to your Entities

Make sure your entity have identifier properties. If you are using the Vergosity.Entity.IEntity interface – you will need to implement the Id property as a System.Guid.

4. Add reference to the DataAnnotations namespace

We are going to use some annotations to provide information to Entity Framework Migrations when we generate the database from the code. Pretty cool, right. Now, Entity Framework will know which property is our identity column.

Reference: System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations

5. Compile the Target Assembly

You will now want to compile the target assembly project before you generate your code. You will select the actual compiled assembly when you use the BuildMotion.CodeBuilder tool.

6. Open/Run the BuildMotion.CodeBuilder application.

Select the target assembly. It should be compiled with your Entity definitions.

Enter the default or core namespace for the application. (i.e., BuildMotion.Reference)

Enter the Application Name (i.e., ReferenceApp).

7. Build Some Code

This will provide the CodeBuilder enough information to create the Service and Entity Framework code. It will also create a few other necessary files for the application. For example, I use Autofac as the dependency injection container, and there is a bootstrap class to do the initial wire up.

9. Include the code into your Target Project.

Q: How do I setup an AngularJS application in Visual Studio 2013?

Not trying to avoid the answer, however, I think the answer to this question depends on the type of application that you need for the solution. Your decision is based on how much of ASP.NET do you want or need. And if you are going to integrate AngularJS with ASP.NET features or not. There are some purists out there that wouldn’t think of integrating AngularJS with an ASP.NET MVC application. They want pure HTML and JavaScript (no Microsoft). That is ok too! I would love to work on that kind of project.

I like to take the approach that AngularJS is a tool and if it is used correctly for the specific job or solution then it could be integrated along with an ASP.NET MVC application – OR NOT. If so, I think you need to determine what the boundaries are for its use and when it is appropriate – there should be a good division of responsibility for MVC and AngularJS. When, Where, and How are you going to use it.

Angular’s MVC approach on the client-side of things using models, views, and controllers all self-contained in neat .js files is a great improvement in the structure and management of JavaScript code. The structure and conventions used in Angular make it a great choice for teams – the conventions are the same. And they will be the same for the next project and the project after that. So Angular is still a good choice whether or not you are combining it with ASP.NET MVC technologies.

Q: Which project template should I use?

Again, it depends based on what you need. You can use the ones that come installed with your version of Visual Studio or you can use some that are created by other concerned developers like yourself.

Singe Page Application: Setup for a single page application that is ASP.NET MVC specific. There are controller, model, and view folders setup for your application with all of the other MVC goodness.

Empty Web Application: Only contains a web.config file. I guess you can delete it if you don’t need it. This is as basic as you get.

Web API: This template provides you with basic ASP.NET MVC, but it includes a sample “Value” Web API controller that uses the new ApiController base class. This project template will allow you to implement Web APIs along with Angular – you have the option of adding as much MVC that you want or not.

Q: When would I use Angular with no ASP.NET MVC (i.e., Angular straight up)?

Recipe: AngularJS ONLY :: Single Page Application (No ASP.NET MVC).

You would make this choice when ASP.NET MVC features are not required or needed. Also, it might be a requirement – you would only be using the Visual Studio 2013 as an IDE or development environment for your application. Visual Studio is a good option to use as an IDE for an AngularJS application. There are some intellisense templates out there that make it a rich experience. You can also use Resharper Extensions for Angular.

This is a great choice when you do not require any HTTP calls for data or data persistence (same application). Or you are using a different HTTP source that is well-known or exposed API to provide data for the application.

This might be a good choice if you want to use the ASP.NET MVC views to serve up the pages of your web site and/or application. It provides some SEO benefits – or so I’ve heard. Basically, you are using ASP.NET to load up the page initially and supply it with whatever it requires for the initial display.

Most likely, you will use Angular for subsequent displays and requests for models. In this recipe, there is a good separation of concerns. ASP.NET is responsible for the initial loading of pages and subsequent calls for information are done by Angular. You might even have just partial sections or partial templates within the ASP.NET MVC page that use specific Angular controllers, models, and views. This would be considered another example of a mixed-mode.

Suggested Project Template: Single Page Application

Q: When would I use ASP.NET MVC, Web API and AngularJS (i.e., mixed mode with a splash of Web API)?

I could see this recipe with or without the ASP.NET MVC. The interesting part here is the Web API mixed in. The Angular controllers may need to make some HTTP calls to retrieve or persist information. Web APIs make this possible. The routing and model binding provided by Web API make the implementation a lot easier.

This would be a great choice when your Angular controllers need a place to call for data.

Suggested Project Template: Web API Application

Q: What packages do I need to implement an AngularJS application?

If you are using Visual Studio, it is probably a good idea to use the Package Manager to retrieve the packages you require.

I’m getting ready to start calling some ASP.NET Web APIs – I wanted to make sure that I get all of the intellisense goodness from Visual Studio. Since I sue Resharper, I installed an extension for Resharper:

Now it is looking good.

Resharper Code Snippets for AngularJS

It gets better with code snippets. You can type in a code snippet name and it will add the code to your script. Type:

ngdc

Now you get the snippet injected into your script. That is pretty cool.

I’m starting a new project that will be using ASP.NET Web API. I have used WCF in the past to create RESTful services – so I’m very interested in how I can achieve the same using Web API. It relies on the HTTP methods:

Get (retrieves a list of items)

Get (retrieves an item by id)

Post (creates a new item)

Put (updates an item)

Delete (removes an item)

So, if I am working with a Customer entity, I would have the following web api:

// GET api/Customers –> public List<Customer> Get(){..}

// GET api/Customers/123 –> public Customer Get(in id){..}

// POST api/Customers –> public void Post(Customer c){..}

// PUT api/Customers/123 –> public void Put(int id, Customer c){..}

// DELETE api/Customers/123 public void Delete(int id){..}

API Method Names

Notice that the method names correspond to the HTTP Method type. This is by convention. However, you have another option by convention as well, you can prefix the methods with the HTTP Method type name. You can use the same URI and ASP.NET Web API will know which method to call in the CustomersController.

As we can see, the mapping the actual URI to the Controller’s method is flexible. Each of the implementations noted above will return the same result. There is also another option to configure the mapping of the URIs to the Controller methods – this is an RPC style, where you actually include the name of the method in the URI – this requires you to modify the HttpRoutes to include the name of the Action in the URI. It is an option – however, I’m going to stick with the more conventional approach.

API Routing

Really, both approaches use Routing. You can modify the route map and register the new route by modifying the WebApiConfig class. If you wanted to use the RPC style (with the Action name), you would just update the RouteTemplate with “api/{Controller}/{Action}/{id}”.

C

There may be other parameters to put into the route template. For example, in a multi-tenant application, you might include an additional parameter and provide a constraint for the value.

Http-Compliant ASP.NET Web API

There are specific things that you will want to do to keep you API Http-Compliant. This is a good thing. We want users of the API to understand the API and have certain expectations when they are working with it. We’ll talk about the message body, Request and Response, and Http status codes.

When we are working with Http Methods what we return in the response and what status codes we use matters. For example, using our simple Get() method – the following implementation is fairly naïve. We are not returning any status codes in the response. The id value supplied may not even be a valid Customer identifier. So we have to be concerned with the how we handle the response and what status codes we use.

An improvement would be to provide a response and a status code if the specified item was not found. Otherwise, the status code would 200 OK.

When the request for a Get is valid, I get the XML in the response and the status code is 200 – OK.

When I inspect the HTTP request and response in Fiddler, I see the expected status code.

Let’s see if I get the 422 status code when the customer is not found during the request. I not only get the correct status code when I do not find the customer, but the Reason Phrase value is also provided in the response. This information will help users of you API to understand the responses when they do not get the expected results. In a more comprehensive solution, we would want to provide other status codes to indicate other causes of not providing the expected response: 200 OK.

Create a new Resource using the Web API

Just as there is special handling in processing a GET request, there is a protocol to use when creating a new resource using HTTP POST. The information used to create a new resource is contained in the body of the Http Request. The data or information can be either XML or JSON format – it just needs to represent the target we are trying to create. The response is also different – we not only need to return a status code, but we need to include some details about the new item that was created. This includes a URI to retrieve the item that was just created.

To improve the ASP.NET Web API default Post method – we update the return type to HttpResponseMessage. This will allow to provide a nice response with a status code, the resource just created, and a URI that will allow the user of the API to retrieve the item just created.

To make the request, we need to create the information used in the body of the request:

{“Name”:”Maria”}

I’ll use Fiddler to compose a request.I updated the body with the JSON that represents a new Customer, I changed the Http Method to POST and updated the URL.

When I execute the request using Fiddler, I expect to receive the information described above. I get the 201 Status – Created and the JSON data in the content represents my new Customer.

Conclusion

We covered a little bit of ground in setting up a GET and a POST. I’ll continue later with a blog entry about PUT and DELETE. But so far, we see how we can use Fiddler to generate a request and/or replay a request. We can retrieve data from our application using HTTP method calls – which has so many uses.

I am now installing Xamarin – some of the required software is listed below. I have heard a lot about this tool during the last year. It is now time to get a little more serious about mobile development. It seems like the perfect fit – being able to use Visual Studio and C# to develop and create mobile applications. I guess what really motivated me is the possibility of getting a free C# t-shirt for installing and running a Xamarin application. I have some ideas for a mobile application – I just don’t want to do another Hello Android or Hello iPhone application.

Java JDK 1.6.0

Android SDK 22.0.0

GTK# 2.12.22

Xamarin Studio 4.2.3

Xamarin.Android for Visual Studio and and Xamarin Studio 4.12.1

Xamarin.iOS for Visual Studio 1.10.47

There is a lot of potential when you combine the power of .NET/C# and Visual Studio along with a tool like Xamarin. Like anything good, it comes with a price. The Xamarin edition that supports Visual Studio costs $999 per year. Better build and sell some apps to make this worth it. There is a free version of Xamarin. But it appears that you might be limited to application size. So, be prepared to pony up some cash if you want to use Visual Studio with Xamarin.